Janet Jackson reviewed
Janet Jackson
Discipline
(Island)
Developed by the right people, Discipline could have altered the course of Janet Jackson as we know her. Nipplegate should have been a reinvention, a chance for a Jackson, any Jackson, to actually taste success in this millennium. For whatever reason she and her handlers are too scared to try.
Done correctly, “So Much Betta” and “The 1” would be acutely confessional barbs pointed inward, Jackson exploring the pathetic attempts of a former star fighting her advance on middle age by trying to be younger. “Tired of being number 2/I can do what she can’t do . . . I can prove it/Let me luv u,” she would groan in a painfully self-aware commentary on industry role-playing. “The 1” would sarcastically punch, “Tell me what I gotta say/Tell me what I gotta do”; Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon could feign fawning yeahs.
But no. Instead we get Missy Elliott in the role of Missy Elliott, cruelly prodding Jackson toward an embarrassing fate. Even the catchy “Feedback” single — doubtless a recent addition to workout classes nationwide — has a nagging sense of “This isn’t the Janet we know,” and might as well be one of a hundred Kelises, Trinas, or even Britneys. The real core of the undisciplined, 22-track wreck is “Never Letchu Go,” which helplessly begs “Let me go and fix it.” It’ll take surgery, and not of the plastic variety.
— Steve Forstneger
